Photo By Petty Officer 3rd Class Tajh Payne | Aviation Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Sherwin Buquid, assigned to the air department of...... read more read more
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Nearly every day that the world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is underway on its 2023 deployment, its air department and squadrons conduct flight operations, but without those running the show behind the curtain, pilots cannot complete their mission and squadrons cannot safely conduct maintenance on the aircraft that their pilots need.
After flight operations, aircraft are lowered to the two large hangar bays below where routine maintenance is conducted and where the Sailors assigned to Gerald R. Ford’s air department V-3 division take over.
The primary objectives of V-3 are to bring aircraft into the hangar bay so squadrons can perform maintenance and to maintain a safe environment to supplement maintenance efficiency.
It takes a team with a minimum of six Sailors to move aircraft throughout the hangar bay, including one aircraft director, one brake rider, one tractor driver, two chock-and-chainers, and one tail and wing safety. Every movement is carefully coordinated between each team member to protect other Sailors, the aircraft, and the ship itself.
High levels of communication and coordination are needed to prevail through challenges such as keeping personnel clear from their movement path, raising and lowering aircraft elevators, and simply moving large objects through small windows of space.
“You have to be precise, it’s like threading a needle at times,” said Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (ABH) Airman Apprentice Roland Dicks Jr. “Without making the right movements at the right time you could seriously injure someone or seriously damage equipment.”
Each and every aircraft aboard Gerald R. Ford is considered a national asset, so it’s essential that V-3 gracefully moves each one through both bays with a minimal margin for error.
This minimal margin for error carries over to other hangar bay responsibilities as well. The ABHs in V-3 also act as safety supervisors while the aircraft is jacked by making sure they are propped up on an even surface to protect the personnel and aircraft while they are in the hangar bay.
Every night, movement plans are arranged to optimize the space in the bays for each squadron, and to get the maximum amount of space necessary to conduct one of Gerald R. Ford’s largest evolutions: a replenishment at sea (RAS).
“We work night-in and night-out to get the hangar bay ready for the next day, especially for RASs,” said Aviation Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class Aamir West. “We move around 20 aircraft a night.”
Moving this many aircraft per night requires coordination and teamwork, between both V-3 and V-1, Gerald R. Ford’s flight deck division. Even a medium-scale RAS can require more than 250 Sailors to move stores, supplies, and food throughout the hangar bays. V-1 and V-3 both work together to ensure that the bays can be cleared out and a RAS can be conducted in a safe, efficient and effective manner.
“We communicate well with them,” said Dicks Jr. “We have to, because we can’t do our work without them, and vice versa.”
Dicks Jr. also said that both divisions try to have a good time while working with one another, as it bolsters their communication and makes the movements go quicker.
The comradery among the divisions shows that they trust one another, have each other’s backs and do all it takes to get the task at hand done.
The Sailors assigned to V-3 know that their behind-the-scenes effort plays a part in keeping Gerald R. Ford firing on all cylinders during its 2023 deployment. This has helped them maintain positive attitudes while under time crunches.
“We just work through it,” Dicks Jr. said when asked how V-3 operates under pressure. “You have to get the job done — yeah, we might have to pack out the whole bay in three hours, but best believe that bay is going to be packed out in three hours. We have to get it done, because we can’t let it fall back on us.”
The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (GRFCSG) is conducting a scheduled deployment in U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations, demonstrating the commitment and power projection capability of the Navy’s globally deployed force. The GRFCSG provides an inherently flexible naval force capable of deploying across combatant commands to meet emerging missions, deter potential adversaries, reassure allies and partners, enhance security and guarantee the free flow of global commerce. In total, the GRFCSG is deployed with more than 5,000 Sailors across all platforms ready to respond globally to combatant commander tasking.
Gerald R. Ford is the U.S. Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier. As the first-in-class ship of Ford-class aircraft carriers, CVN 78 represents a generational leap in the U.S. Navy’s capacity to project power on a global scale. Ford-class aircraft carriers introduce 23 new technologies, including EMALS, AAG and Advanced Weapons Elevators. The new systems incorporated onto Ford-class ships are designed to deliver greater lethality, survivability and joint interoperability with a 20% smaller crew than a Nimitz-class carrier, paving the way forward for naval aviation.
For more information about the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), visit https://www.airlant.usff.navy.mil/cvn78/ and follow along on Facebook: @USSGeraldRFord, Instagram: @cvn78_grford, Twitter: @Warship_78, DVIDS www.dvids.net/CVN78 and LinkedIn at USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78).
| Date Taken: | 11.07.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 11.17.2023 11:05 |
| Story ID: | 458054 |
| Location: | MEDITERRANEAN SEA |
| Web Views: | 1,547 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Always Moving: USS Gerald R. Ford’s Show Behind the Curtain, by PO3 Tajh Payne, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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